


Cast Off Thy (Technological) Burdens

by anna_bird



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Plot What Plot, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-12
Updated: 2009-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:57:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_bird/pseuds/anna_bird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantis is having technological difficulties.  John and Rodney are working on it.  Really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cast Off Thy (Technological) Burdens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sasha_feather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_feather/gifts).



> Light silly stuff, PWP. Beta'd by were_duck, written for sasha_feather in an attempt to assuage her computer woes.

Rodney had appropriated the faster of the two remaining working laptops, and it sat shrine-like on the lab desk surrounded by Teyla's candles and a few random bunches of solar Christmas lights Simpson made on a whim the previous year. They didn't have much of a life past sunset, and the gentle blue glow was dimming steadily and too quickly for comfort.

 

"Just calm down. The Athosians manage to exist without electricity or air filters or computers or video games-"

 

"Ah yes, if only we could be as ignorant AND deprived. They're probably engaging in that weird pie-slapping orgy thing," Rodney said. He flicked something off the keyboard and pecked away.

 

"Well, it _is_ -" John checked his watch out of habit and sighed. "Tuesday." Roughly half the city had transported to the mainland before the last of the jumpers petered out. "And those aren't pies, they're symbols."

 

"Crust. Filling with apple-like things. Pie plates. _Sliced cheese._ I don't care how much American culture tries to symbolize sexual awakening or god forbid, _fertility_; for me and the rest of the sane universe it has nothing to do with sticking any - er - sensitive parts into baked pastry."

 

John snorted. It sounded a lot louder than normal.

 

The city was still. He hadn't felt the silence since they'd stepped through the gate five years ago, and even then the city had responded to him audibly, sensually and almost instantly - walking through the deadened, cold corridors, he felt like a perpetual pallbearer. It almost felt as though they were submerged again.

 

In essence: nearly everything electronic walking or nailed down had died a slow and irrevocable death over the course of four days. The radios had been the first to go. Woolsey's rationale in this case was for a skeleton staff to wait for the Daedalus; a stupid plan, Rodney argued, as who knew whether or not the ship might fall victim to the same weirdly twisted virus code they'd picked at on forty separate unlinked computers for three days.

 

There were two computers left; Zelenka had one in the gateroom, while Woolsey was starting a new Luddite colony on the mainland, Chuck was playing hangman in the control room, and he and Rodney were locked - accidentally - in the lab. John went over and poked at the door. He wasn't being Pavlovian or compulsively prone to action. He was just being - hopeful. And anyway, what the fuck good were Ancient architects who didn't understand the basic helpful concept of, say, Jeffries tubes?

 

"For the last time, I'm sorry about the doors," Rodney called behind him. "Who the hell defaults to _lock_, anyway?"

 

"Only good in situations where unfriendly Wraith show up," John agreed.

 

"Yeah, right, wait, unfriendly Wraith as opposed to friendly Wraith, because no two Wraith programmers think alike -" Rodney typed furiously and John drifted back over.

 

"What?"

 

"It's a hybrid of Todd and Michael's code, but it's ultimately self-destructive - god_damn it_, and I can't tell Zelenka because we're in the self-inflicted Battlestar Galactica dark ages here, but I think if I can just squeeze out a few more minutes of time - "

 

He typed something, frowned, and typed harder. "The hell?"

 

The laptop hard drive made a clickita-clickita-clickita-click-click, whined like it was unspooling all of its stored data into a metallic slivery mess, and then the screen booped and went dark. Rodney made a strangled sound and clutched at it.

 

"Close. I was there."

 

"Calm down. It's okay," John said, patting his shoulder. "I think Zelenka's had a bit more juice."

 

"Exactly, and he's _less intelligent_ than I am, so it'll probably take that extra time for him just to figure out the first inkling of what's going on," Rodney snapped. He peeled his fingers back from the laptop and, after a few moments of aimless pacing, sat down on the floor with his back against a cabinet. "Forget it. We may as well crack open the petri dishes. They're Parrish's, anyway, and he's probably too busy with young strapping Athosians to care about actual results."

 

"Quit whining." John said. "I've got a couple powerbars left."

 

Rodney perked up a little. "Any peanut butter?"

 

"Maybe." John twigged an eyebrow at him. He opened a few random drawers, found his dead radio in his pocket, tossed it in. "I thought you said you guys kept some cards around here for strip poker."

 

"You were _listening_ when I told you that? It's not true. At least, I don't think it's true." Rodney made a disgusted face. "Thanks so much."

 

John sat down across from him so that their knees were brushing, just a bit. "Or we could. Do something else." He laid a hand on Rodney's knee, tried to keep steady. "Something that doesn't require any advanced technology."

 

Rodney snorted. "Something tells me we need to move this – er, what are we calling this?"

 

"Fucking," John said, and Rodney twitched under his hand.

 

"God. And you say _I_ shouldn't name – anyway. We should go ahead, get some toys, move this, this relationship to the next level. I'm unhappy with the idea that any part of my life is tech-free."

 

John stroked up his leg and pulled him down and -

 

"Lab blankets?" Rodney panted.

 

"Well, I don't work here," John said, nettled. "_You_ get them - " and Rodney dug out several bundles of scratchy blue wool and scattered them wildly on the floor and then put his hand on John's dick through his pants and that was it, technology was overrated (and too much damned work at that) and there was a reason the holodeck never really did it for anyone solo except for Barclay. John opened Rodney's pants and Rodney was kissing him - he tasted hot and strange and more indefinite without the residue of six cups of coffee - and he was working off John's belt and John pushed him against the cabinet again and licked a long careful stripe up Rodney's cock.

 

But Rodney shoved back at him, gasping, "Wait, wait," and John was prepared to be supremely offended until Rodney pushed him down on his side, and then levered himself down, too, unzipped John's fly and breathed over his dick. And hey, John supposed he was okay with that. He sucked Rodney down and pushed into Rodney's mouth and it was hot and wet and it was hard to gasp and suck at the same time - but he was good at adapting.

 

-

 

"Okay, so that was nice," Rodney said a little later. "Maybe I'm not completely averse to leading a more Luddite existence."

 

John really didn't feel like getting up yet, and the door was still locked indefinitely, so.

 

"For a day or two. Okay, twenty-four hours exactly, but that's a carefully honed time limit and I don't know what the stress of existing sans computer, sans _calculator_ past that would do to me."

 

"You're about to find out," John said sleepily. "The Daedalus isn't scheduled to get here for another three." Rodney scowled. John smirked and tried to suppress the urge to crawl all over him, but then he thought _three days, for Chrissakes_, and climbed on top of Rodney and kissed him.

 

The lab drawer squawked. They stared at each other for a second, and then John jumped up, opened the drawer and yanked out his headset.

 

"Hello?"

 

"Colonel Sheppard," said Zelenka. "Welcome back to the 21st century."

 

"Nice to hear your voice, Radek," John said. Rodney rolled his eyes. "Can we expect the lights soon?"

 

"One thing at a time, Colonel," Zelenka chided. "Oh, I do have good news though, with direct access to the ZPM restored, the security network is fully functioning and we have shield capabilities once again."

 

John gulped. "Security network? The cameras are back up?"

 

"Yes, in fact we should be able to see you shortly - "

 

"Jesus!" John grabbed for one of the blankets.

 

"What, what?" Rodney was saying, but all John could hear was a muffled snort and Chuck saying something like "in a crisis situation for crying out loud" and then Zelenka was back, saying hurriedly, "Some power conduits are still, ah, malfunctioning. We will come get you out in, oh say, fifteen minutes? Radek out."

 

John buried his face in a pile of pants and itchy blanket and told himself to be cool, Chuck was a Canadian, Zelenka was Czech and whatever, they didn't care, it wasn't like _Caldwell_ was up there in the control room with them. Yet. "What were you saying about low-tech lifestyles?"

 

Rodney harrumphed. "It's hard to be stoic in the face of all these blinky, humming machines."

 

John groaned, and Rodney petted his head. It felt nice.

 

"But if you're really good for the next fifteen minutes," Rodney said, "maybe we can get a jumper working in time to catch the end of the pie orgy."

 

 

 

The End


End file.
